The world was not what it seemed. But then again, neither was I.
I woke up that morning, as I always did, to the sound of silence. Not the kind of silence that hums with life—birds chirping, wind rustling, the distant murmur of a city waking up. No, this was a silence so complete it felt like a vacuum, as if the world had been stripped of its soundwaves. I sat up in bed, my fingers brushing against the cold, smooth surface of the nightstand. My hand froze. The clock was gone.
The Vanishing
At first, I thought I’d misplaced it. I tore through the room, searching under the bed, in the drawers, even behind the curtains. But the clock wasn’t just missing—it was as if it had never existed. The space where it had been was empty, but not in the way you’d expect. It wasn’t just an absence of the object; it was an absence of the idea of the object. I couldn’t even remember what it looked like.
I stumbled into the kitchen, my heart pounding. The toaster was gone too. And the coffee maker. And the mug I always used, the one with the chip on the handle. I stared at the counter, my mind racing.
What’s happening? I thought. Am I losing my mind?
But it wasn’t just objects. As the day wore on, I noticed other things. The smell of rain was gone. The taste of salt. The feeling of warmth on my skin. It was as if the world was being erased, piece by piece, and I was the only one who noticed.
The Encounter
I left the house, desperate for answers. The streets were eerily quiet, the usual bustle of life replaced by an unsettling stillness. I saw people, but they moved like shadows, their faces blurred, their voices muted. I tried to speak to them, but my words seemed to dissolve before they reached their ears.
Then I saw her.
She was standing at the edge of the park, her figure sharp and clear against the fading backdrop of the world. Her eyes met mine, and for the first time that day, I felt a flicker of recognition.
“You see it too, don’t you?” she said, her voice cutting through the silence like a knife.
I nodded, unable to speak.
“It’s called the Absence,” she said. “It’s not just things that are disappearing. It’s the concepts behind them. The ideas. The memories. Once they’re gone, they’re gone forever.”
The Revelation
Her name was Lira, and she had been living with the Absence for weeks. She explained that it wasn’t a physical phenomenon—it was a psychological one. The Absence fed on the things we took for granted, the things we didn’t truly see. The more we ignored them, the easier it was for the Absence to take them away.
“But why?” I asked. “Why is this happening?”
Lira hesitated, her eyes darkening. “Because we’re forgetting who we are. We’re losing our connection to the world, to each other, to ourselves. The Absence is a reflection of that. It’s not just taking things away—it’s showing us what we’ve already lost.”
The Choice
As the days passed, the Absence grew stronger. Entire buildings vanished, their absence leaving behind empty spaces that felt wrong, like gaps in reality itself. People began to disappear too, their faces fading from my memory as soon as they were gone.
Lira and I clung to each other, desperate to hold on to what little we had left. But even she began to fade, her voice growing softer, her presence less tangible.
“You have to remember,” she whispered one night, her hand slipping through mine like smoke. “Remember the things that matter. The things that make you you. If you can do that, you might be able to stop it.”
The Twist
I tried. I really did. I wrote down every memory, every detail, every feeling. But the Absence was relentless. It consumed my words before I could even finish writing them.
And then, one day, I woke up to silence again. But this time, it was different. The world was still there, but it felt… hollow. Empty. I looked in the mirror and saw nothing. Not my reflection—just an empty space where it should have been.
That’s when I realized the truth.
The Absence wasn’t taking things away from the world. It was taking them away from me. I was the one fading, my existence unraveling as I forgot who I was. The world wasn’t disappearing—it was moving on without me.
The Resolution
I don’t know how much time I have left. Maybe it’s already too late. But I’ll keep writing, keep trying to remember. Because if I can hold on to just one thing—one memory, one feeling, one idea—then maybe, just maybe, I can keep myself from disappearing entirely.
But even as I write these words, I can feel them slipping away, the letters blurring, the meaning fading. Soon, there will be nothing left. Not even this.
And then, there will only be silence.
“The Absence doesn’t just take things away. It shows us what we’ve already lost.”
